“Fifty years after the Summer of Love, where have all the hippies gone?”

Short Synopsis

Filmed over a period of ten years at a remote communal ranch in New Mexico, Hippie Family Values is an intimate chronicle of a handful of hippie elders, along with their adult children and grandkids. The film counters dismissive stereotypes with stories of people whose worldview was forged in the 60s counterculture, and who remain motivated by those youthful convictions in their 60s, 70s and 80s. The founders of this back-to-the-land experiment are slowing down and facing declining health. Will the next generation be able to sustain the community into the future?

DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY

Hippie Family Values has grown organically from my experience playing music with the Wayback Machine throughout southern Arizona and New Mexico over the past 17 years. The film explores the legacy of the hippie movement and ethos through the stories of elders and their offspring at a communal ranch in New Mexico, where the Wayback Machine has played our favorite gig of the year every summer.

THE DIRECTOR

Beverly Seckinger is a filmmaker based in Tucson, Arizona, and Professor in the School of Theatre, Film & Television at the University of Arizona. She is also a longtime Tucson musician, whose band the Wayback Machine has been playing for the greater hippie diaspora of southern Arizona and New Mexico for nearly 20 years. Her 2004 diary/documentary Laramie Inside Out, about the aftermath of Matthew Shepard’s 1998 murder in her hometown community, won the Best of Arizona award at the 2004 Arizona International Film Festival, and had its US broadcast premiere on PBS in June 2007. Laramie Inside Out is distributed by New Day Films, Filmoption/Canada, and American Public Television.

SYNOPSIS

Shot over a period of ten years at a remote communal ranch in New Mexico, Hippie Family Values is an intimate chronicle of a handful of hippie elders, along with their adult children and grandkids.

Sally was the ultimate back-to-the-land pioneer, building her own adobe house—while pregnant—in time to give birth there. Now her daughter Dulcie is returning to the ranch to raise her own children in this community. But will Dulcie and her husband Charris be able to resist the tug of the wider world? Kate came to the ranch to raise her children and work as a potter. When she can no longer sustain the commute to care for her ailing 90-year old mother, Kate brings her home to the ranch to spend her final months. Bjorn has lived at the ranch for nearly 40 years. Now over 80, he struggles with declining health and wonders whether the next generation will be able to sustain the community.

The film counters dismissive stereotypes with stories of people whose worldview was forged in the 60s counterculture, and who remain motivated by those youthful ideals in their 60s, 70s and 80s—a vision, more urgent now than ever, of healed relationships to body, mind, spirit, society, Earth and cosmos.

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SCOTTSDALE CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

Since 1975, Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts has provided a stage for a wide range of artists and genres, creating shared, inspiring experiences for the community that celebrate artistic excellence and cultural awareness. Today one of the premier performing-arts halls in the western United States, the Center presents a diverse season of music, dance, theater, comedy and film from around the world.

LOCATION AND PARKING

Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts is located at 7380 E. Second St. in downtown Scottsdale. Free parking is available in the public parking garage located to the west of Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts on Wells Fargo Avenue. Additional free parking is available at the Old Town Parking Corral at East Second Street and Brown Avenue and at the Civic Center Library parking garage located on Drinkwater Boulevard at East Second Street.

ACCESSIBILITY

Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts offers performance accommodations to enhance audience members’ experience, including: American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation or live audio description with two weeks advance notice. Assistive-listening devices and wheelchair seating are also available. Visi twww.ScottsdalePerformingArts.org/visit/accessibility/ or contact the Member and Patron Services Box Office at 480-499-TKTS (8587) [TDD: 480-874-4694] for further details. Please inquire about services when ordering tickets.